Trust in God

Wednesday, April 06, 2016

Trust in God Easter, Day 11

St. Juliana of Mt. Cornillon (1193-1258) is named after a mountain that is near Leige in Belgium. At age 5 she lost her parents and was placed in a convent in Leige in which the nuns took care of lepers in a hospital associated with the convent. She became a religious and devoted herself to the care of the sick while she reflected on the writings of St. Augustine and St. Bernard and developed a great devotion for the Eucharist. At age 16. she begin having visions of “the moon in full splendor, crossed diametrically by a dark stripe.” In time, she came to understand that the moon symbolized the life of Christ on earth and the dark line on it represented the absence of a liturgical feast in honor of Christ’s Body and Blood. In time, she revealed her visions to many prelates who agreed upon a feast within the Church which finally developed into our Feast of Corpus Christi which is celebrated each year on the Thursday after the octave of the Trinity. Pope Urban IV, who had been an archdeacon at Leige, formally instituted the feast and commissioned St. Thomas Aquinas to prepare the text for the office and the mass.

While Juliana had the support of the hierarchy, there was a politician in Leige that persecuted her throughout her life and, at one time, drove her out from the city. She had to suffer this opposition while trusting her inner call. This was a quote that described her attitude:

‘Saint Juliana never ceased to hope in the help of God amid the most cruel persecutions. In effect, His clearly expressed Will was accomplished only after her death. Let us learn from her patience to practice the holy virtue of hope, and to rely on the divine aid for all that is pleasing to Him.”

In our time, we have recently experienced the loss of Mother Angelica. Her life experiences also are filled with events that witness to her absolute trust in God. Bishop Barron wrote about an event in her life. Sometime after she discerned that God wanted her to develop the Catholic radio network she ordered a large satellite dish for the network. It was delivered, and the delivery person would not allow it to be taken off the truck unless it was paid for. She said to him “ Just a minute.” She went to the chapel to pray for God to solve this problem. In a few seconds, she received a telephone call from another country. A man called. It has just occurred to him to make a $600,000 donation to her and he called to tell her about it. The satellite dish got delivered.

Alleluia verse for todayGlorify the LORD with me,let us together extol his name.I sought the LORD, and he answered meand delivered me from all my fears.